D&D 5E new Psion mechanic - Help Wanted

[plisnithus8]

I'm of the opinion that psionics, if used, shouldn't just be re-flavored magic.

What if a psion temporarily exchanged ability points for power?

Let's say she has a 15 intelligence so each time she used a 1st level psion intelligence-based discipline (spell), it took a point of intelligence away from her until a long rest.
A 2nd level discipline would take away 2 points, etc.
Different disciplines could be based on different abilities:

• mind blast for Int,
• divination for Wis,
• leaping for Dex,
• temporary hit points for Con, etc.

She would only know a limited number per level similar to other classes, but she could use them potentially more often (maybe until a 6 Ability Score?) but for a price.
At higher levels she is more power but pays a higher price (and would probably select Ability Score Increases in the areas of her favorite disciplines).
The build-balance could be tricky, but the potency/penalty aspect could add to adventure/RP.

What do you think? Suggestions?

 

[Blue]

Okay, so spell points, but you also need to recalculate modifiers on skills and it will impact your roleplay where if you have a combat before some other pillar you may be a drooling idiot for the exploration or roleplay parts.

I don't mind spending an alternate currency, but this has two different full-stops for me: recalculating other parts of your character sheet, and impacting how you roleplay your character - having to give up being smart to carry your weight in combat.

 

[tglassy]

This is interesting, but problematic. If they go into a big combat, they're losing int points every round as they use their mind blasts. There would need to be certain abiilties that they can use indefinitely.

Or how about this. Perhaps they trade ability points for the equivalent of Invocations. So, they trade one point in wisdom to have Detect Magic At Will. They're loosing perception and wisdom saves, but gaining another form of perception. Or trade a point or two of INT to be able to cast Mind Blast at will.

And I'd probably make it something they have to choose during either a short or long rest. Basically, I'd treat it like invocations, and the more points your willing to lose, the better the invocation you can access. I'd probably make it so they automatically knew all the invocations, but the higher level they are, the fewer ability points each invocation costs. So, at level 1, a very powerful invocation costs 7 ability points, but by level 10, it only costs 4. This way, at higher levels, they can have more activated at once, or keep more of their ability scores while having the same activated.

This makes it different from spell casting, divine, arcane, warlock or otherwise, becuase they learn new abilities as they grow, while the psychic can do anything on their list from the get go, it just takes more of a strain on them if they're lower level. So, a level 1 psychic could maybe have one or two invocations active..

Perhaps you could do something like Strength points = Physical powers, Dexterity = Stealth based powers, Constitution = Defensive powers and physical alterations, Wisdom = Mental defense and Perception powers, Charisma = Mind affecting powers.

Or something like that. It'd be very flexible, depending on your build.

 

[plisnithus8]

Thsnks, I sppreciate these ideas.
It would be very complicated to recalculate with every use, hadn't thought about all of the skills.
The invocation idea is interesting to put in the mix...

 

[Fanaelialae]

I agree with [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] that it's problematic. If you're going to make it draining, I'd recommend basing it on hit points, since those go up and down regularly (and scale with level), and there's no need to recalculate modifiers. Plus, hit points scale much better with level. If your psychic takes nothing but feats, their ability scores will remain the same at level 20 as they were at level 1. Even if not, given that typical characters start with somewhere around a total of 65 ability points (after racial modifiers), gaining 10 more over 20 levels isn't much.

A design that I've been tinkering with (but haven't had much time to work on) is that psychics use a reverse spell point system, which I tentatively termed Stress. As a psychic uses their powers, Stress accumulates. The more powerful an ability, the more Stress it causes the psychic (I was thinking of giving all powers the ability to scale, akin to how spells like Sleep and Fireball work). Eventually, perhaps when they hit some threshold, or maybe when they roll a natural 1 to activate the ability (that's something else I was considering, as in 2nd edition their powers might not be automatic) their powers go out of control, endangering both themselves and everyone in the vicinity. Maybe something like a large, powerful vortex of psychic energy surrounds the psychic but instead of being powered by Stress it drains the psychic's hit points. If you have specialties like Telepath and Telekinetic, the vortex might be based on that (a telepathic scream, and a telekinetic whirlwind, respectively). Assuming that the psychic survives, their Stress gets reduced. As such, unlike spell slots and spell points which form a hard cap on how many spells a caster can use in a day, the psychic has a soft cap. They can use their abilities as much as they like, provided they're willing to risk the cost. Anyway, that's the gist of it.

EDIT
Perhaps on a failed activation roll, the power still succeeds but simply results in more Stress. Or maybe the player can choose between taking the additional Stress or allowing the power activation to fail. Perhaps the additional Stress could be randomly rolled after the player decides to force activation, to preserve a sense of gambling. For example, if the player rolls poorly on their activation, they could choose to turn it into a success but gain an additional 1d8 Stress.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I have a couple of concerns.

Recent editions (4E and 5E) have shied away from on-the-fly modifications to ability scores because they're pretty deep in the system math and can impose quite a calculation burden at the table for some groups. Dex is probably the worst offender: a change in Dex modifies a character's AC, initiative, multiple skills, and potentially their attack and damage rolls, any or all of which are easy to forget in practice. So what we see instead, especially in 5E, is a simpler sort of modifier. Bless and bane modify specific rolls by 1d4, which you can physically hand the player as a reminder. Enhance ability and hex impose generic advantage/disadvantage. Neither requires players to recalculate anything on their character sheet.

You also appear to be running headlong into multiple attribute dependency, or MAD, requiring the character to have high scores in lots of different abilities to be effective. This is an unpopular game mechanic. Even in 3E, you'll note that they changed the psion from using different ability scores for different disciplines in 3.0 to always using Intelligence in 3.5. They stuck with this in 4E and (according to Unearthed Arcana) 5E.

So I would take idea in one of two directions. The first would be to have psions "tap" an ability score to use a power, imposing disadvantage on checks with that score until they rest. Tapping is binary -- you can't tap an ability that's already tapped. This would give psions a more limited repertoire, a maximum of six powers, somewhat akin to a warlock, so I'd probably make the taps refresh on a short rest rather than a long one. Alternately, there could be specific conditions that allow the psion to untap a score. This system is simple and doesn't require character sheet recalculation. And it preserves the multiple-attribute flavor of the old-school psion that you seem to be going for without running into mechanical MAD, since disadvantage on Strength checks works the same whether you have a 6 in Strength or 16.

The second direction would be to ditch the multiple-attribute flavor and pick one key score for the psion -- probably Intelligence. Using a power earns you a d4 penalty die on Intelligence checks until you can rest. These can accumulate. Maybe you have to roll them whenever you use a power, and if you roll higher than your Intelligence score, something bad happens. Lots of stuff you can do with this. This is, again, simple and easy to use at the table, and it gets rid of MAD. It does get rid of the multiple-attribute flavor, though, and I would not recommend combining this with the multiple-attribute system because then you have to track six different penalty die totals for the six scores.

 

[plisnithus8]

Great ideas, I'll try to work something up...